Campaign finance bill upsets Demo

For months, Salt Lake County Councilman Joe Hatch has been badgering his fellow councilmen to pass a new campaign finance disclosure ordinance.

And now that the council has finally taken up the issue again, Hatch still isn't happy.

"You come up with a complete and total new draft and want it passed in a week. . . . It's ridiculous," he told Councilman Russell Skousen in a meeting Tuesday.

Skousen has proposed a new campaign finance disclosure law for Salt Lake County, based on state law, that would require numerous new disclosures. He and others are pushing quick passage so candidates who file for county office next month will know the disclosure rules going in. (Hopefuls must formally file their candidacy March 8-17.)

Hatch is pushing a more modest version of the ordinance the council considered, and he championed, last summer.

"You're using a template (state law) that has so much nonsense, 'Oh, we'll take this out, we'll take that out,' " he said, holding up a copy of Skousen's 32-page proposal.

Then, brandishing a copy of his own 19-page draft, he added, "This already has it out."

The council last considered a new campaign finance disclosure ordinance Sept. 25. The issue arose last spring out of a provision in the old law that would have subjected staffers in Mayor Nancy Workman's office to criminal penalties for failure to file. The council agreed that part of the ordinance was unfair, amended it, and has been working on a comprehensive redraft ever since.

Enacting a new ordinance might seem a relatively simple matter. But in this case, partisan politics has considerably complicated things. Hatch, a Democrat, has repeatedly accused his Republican colleagues of delaying and stonewalling, with the Republicans responding that Hatch is simply looking to make political hay out of the issue.

"We wanted to get it done, but other things — the budget and so forth — came first," Skousen said.

Legally, the council can pass a new campaign finance disclosure ordinance any time it wants, county attorney Gavin Anderson said, even smack in the middle of the campaign season.

"But it's a little bit the notion of being fair," he said. "We don't want to change the rules right in the middle of the campaign."